The call continues. Mike, the head of AISC, weighs in on the latest speculation on David’s whereabouts. Another individual who AISC brought onto the case has recently begun to frequent our noon calls. Until now he has been working behind the scenes. We hear from him next. A gruff voice proceeds to tell us what he has learned from an American government official with contacts in the region. I have not met the owner of the voice on the other end of the line, so I have yet to match a face with the speaker. But his voice is distinct and he seems to be quite the mastermind, able to think of long-term connections and associations of the Haqqanis. The gravelly older voice on the end of the line, with a hint of a New England accent, is Dewey Clarridge. Over the course of the next few months, his colorful personality emerges. We quickly learn that Dewey has two modes: grumpy and “grandfatherly.” He shifts between the two periodically, occasionally offering me heartfelt encouragement: “We’re gonna win this thing, kiddo!” And at other times, he is disgruntled and tells me to take up needlepoint. He often punctuates his point by hanging up on the noon calls or telling us all to shut up. McCraw refers to the softer side of Dewey as “Grandpa Dewey.”
Dewey seems to be a sharp strategist and savvy operator. I consider his opinions, though I do not always appreciate the delivery. Today he informs us as to how he thinks David’s case might play out. If David or his captors are still in Afghanistan, the winter storms will be kicking in, followed by the spring offensive—this is a period of time during which the Taliban fighters regroup and redouble their efforts—typically in April. On the basis of this pattern, he estimates David will not be released before May.
May! I am outraged—inconveniently so, as the photo shoot is beginning to take shape in the background. The actress is finished with hair and makeup and is getting ready for her close-up.
“May is thoroughly unacceptable,” I respond, my imperious fashion editor voice creeping in. “How can you tell me this? David has been gone for two months. Every day he sits there takes a toll on his sanity.”
I realize this is a business on both sides and wonder what the incentive is to get him out quickly if our security team is paid by the day. I say as much, which thoroughly offends and pisses off half the team. The rest of the group is silent, understanding it’s my prerogative as the hostage’s wife to lose my cool now and then. I am disgusted at the prospect of facing more months of uncertainty. I am also tired of dealing with a virtual roomful of men. Not the eager-to-please pinups we exhibit in
Cosmo
, but the macho former-intel and military types who comprise our team. As Dewey interrupts to tell me to calm down—and shut up—I hang up. I do not want to incur more damage. And my tolerance for speculation coupled with chauvinism is exhausted.
The shoot gets under way and seems on track, so I head home. It has begun to snow. The cool air is a calming relief. No sooner do I round the corner than I get a call from someone at the shoot. Lunch has arrived. Shrimp. And the publicist has neglected to tell us that the actress is allergic to shellfish. What should the crew do? I suggest ordering extra sandwiches. They inform me the water for tea is cold.
You’ve got to be kidding me,
I think. Yet it’s my job to manage every detail of a shoot, large and small, from budgeting and location down to gastronomic minutiae. The big picture and the smallest detail. But given the fact that I have been told that someone surrounding David’s case may have been shot and that I should expect to face the cold winter months without my husband, I find it impossible to care.
Trudging back to the apartment I hit an all-time low. I am exhausted to the point of tears. I don’t see how I can juggle my work life and the demands of the kidnapping. Pleasing a celebrity and chewing out a security team are incongruous and perhaps irreconcilable activities.
At home, my mother encourages me to get some rest, but my mind is on overload. I find no peace in sitting still. I glance at the avocado plant my mother has been growing in the apartment since Thanksgiving. It is now a hearty sapling and has sprouted several leaves.
“I should leave work,” I say. She encourages me to hang on. Work, she says, while stressful, provides a sense of stability and routine. And, oddly, a respite from being completely consumed by crisis. I am frustrated because I am unable to give 100 percent to work. I have to resign myself to the fact that my energy is finite. If working at half speed is all I can do right now, I need to accept it. The magazine has recently offered to let me hire a freelancer to fill in for me a few days a week. My mother encourages me to take advantage of this and rest when I can.
My mother and I have made very different choices in life. She married young and had three children. Motherhood was a priority for her in her twenties and thirties.
I am nearly forty and have just gotten married. I hope to have a family, but other things were more important to me until now. I regret to admit that the clock is now ticking full force. In fact, the alarm bell rings every hour. One subtext to all this uncertainty and waiting is that I wonder if David and I will miss the opportunity to have a family together.
My mother and I are quite different, yet I know no one feels my pain more than her. It’s tough for her to see me in distress. She has been a real trouper, doing her best to conceal her own sadness and fear. This alone is a huge service. I often feel I have no room for anyone else’s emotion. I am constantly barraged with well-meaning but often tearful inquiries about David. Calls from friends and family once a comfort now feel like an added responsibility. I do not know what to tell them. I have hit full saturation. It’s all I can do to keep myself composed, let alone comfort someone else.
At this point, David’s colleagues, other news organizations, the United States government and close relatives are aware of the situation. Yet most of my colleagues, with the exception of the top editors at
Cosmopolitan
and a few close friends, are still in the dark.
My mother tells me on occasion that she does not quite know what to do to help me. I reassure her that just her presence is enough—the fact that she has kept the apartment in order, reminded me to eat and rest. These things, while so basic, are so easily forgotten in the midst of crisis. She is also quite handy, I have learned, and regularly assigns herself home improvement projects, executing them flawlessly. They involve everything from putting a closet door back on track to repairing floor tiles and managing the plumber when the faucet leaks. As I look around, the apartment seems brighter. She confesses that she has painted the hallway. “When?” I ask, astonished. “While you were at work one day, just some minor touch ups,” she replies. I am exhausted by the thought of her seamless productivity around the home. Exhausted and thankful.
If nothing else, I have a newfound respect for my mother; not just her efficiency, but her strength and her complete willingness to be my silent hero. I appreciate the power her presence has to make everything seem like it will be all right. My father, too, has been a strong support, shuttling my mother between New York and Maine and visiting on the weekends. He has been a selfless advocate, willing to accommodate my mother’s long absences as he knows her presence has been an essential part of my ability to cope with the daily challenges of the kidnapping.
I never wanted to be the spouse stuck at home, waiting for someone to return. For years, I chose a career that would enable me to be the one off having adventures, often at the expense of my personal life. In David, I chose a partner who had taken a similar path. Our desire to reform our solitary lives and build a home life seemed to converge. I recall our first meeting in New York, or the first meeting I remember. I had met David briefly in college, at Brown where we were both students. He had bright red carrot-top hair, was always dressed in khakis and an oxford shirt, and never said a word to me. He swears we met in New York five years or so after graduation when he stopped by my apartment with a mutual friend. I have no memory of it. The same friend suggested we meet in June 2006.
We exchanged e-mails and met at a restaurant in my neighborhood. At any rate, the David of 2006 breezed into the restaurant, only a few minutes late.
I didn’t consider our dinner to be a date, but merely two people with a mutual friend, meeting for a casual meal. He had just finished a day of reporting. I’d just come from a still-life shoot for
Self
magazine, where I was working as a photo editor.
I was pleasantly surprised. For starters, David was taller than I remembered. I was in heels and he still had a few inches on me. He was also friendlier, more talkative. And he was a good listener—probably a side benefit of his job, or perhaps the reason he was so good at it. We spoke freely. He told me he had recently returned to the States from a reporting posting in Delhi. He was looking to slow down a bit, maybe settle down. He asked how I felt about my life now. I said I had spent a lot of time thinking only of me. I was ready to share my life with someone else. This was risky for a first nondate, but I was tired of game playing: I was ready to think about someone else for a change. I wanted to start a family. We also shared a mutual connection to Maine. By coincidence, his father lives twenty minutes from my parents. We each treasured our fond memories of spending time there.
At the end of the night, I kissed David on the cheek. He told me he was headed off to Afghanistan, but would call from there. The very notion of calling me from a war zone seemed a bit improbable, impractical. To my surprise, that is exactly what he did, on a regular basis during his monthlong assignment.
I remember saying good-bye to David that night and rushing home to call my mother. “I met the most interesting man,” I told her.
THE TALIBAN TRUST THE RED CROSS
David, Mid-January 2009
B
adruddin arrives for another visit. He walks into the room and I greet him respectfully, shake his hand, and sit on top of my pink Barbie bedspread. He formally greets everyone else in Pashto. As he makes small talk, I am on my best behavior and trying to regain the trust of the guards. I brace myself for the bad news that seems to come with each of Badruddin’s visits.
After several minutes, he pulls papers from his pocket that bear the seal of the International Committee of the Red Cross. “Red Cross Message” is printed just below the seal, followed by a blank form where prisoners or refugees give their name, date, and place of birth as well as other details that prove their identity. I’m going to be allowed to write a letter to my wife. My fake suicide attempt may, in fact, have placed some pressure on our captors.
For weeks, I’ve been practicing what I would say to my family if given the chance. I want to communicate far more than I did in the first video. Someone produces a pen and I stare at the form. Badruddin and the guards stare at me.
The form asks the prisoner to list the full names of their mother, father, and grandfathers. I hesitate, fearing that listing names could endanger my family. At the same time, I know that if I refuse to name them or give false names it will raise my captors’ suspicions.
I write down their names, hoping my family will understand the rationale that has gradually solidified in my mind. Crying on videos, begging my family for money, and obeying my captors’ commands is justifiable if it saves the lives of Asad and Tahir. My wife, family, and friends are strong, I tell myself, and they will able to bear this burden.
I begin writing the letter. To make it seem like I have nothing to hide, I describe each sentence to Badruddin before writing it on the form in clear capital letters.
“Thank you for our wonderful wedding on September 6, 2008,” I write in clear capital letters that I hope will be easy to read. I try to include innocuous details that will both prove I am, in fact, the author of the letter and bolster my wife’s spirits. “Memories of that wonderful day and our beautiful time together keep me strong here.”
I tell Kristen I love her “so very, very, very much” and thank her, my family, and my friends for all they are doing to help us. Then I try to ease any guilt they may feel. I know I might not have another chance to communicate with them and I want to give them closure if our case ends badly.
“Simply do the best you can,” I write. “That’s all I ask.
“I accept the consequences of my actions and thank you all for all of the joy you’ve given me,” I write. “I thank you and love you all so much.”
Badruddin declares that the next portion of the letter should focus on the Taliban’s demands. We briefly argue over what those should be. I insist they are vastly too high. He says he is already compromising.
“The Taliban started out asking for 10 prisoners and have reduced their demand to 5 prisoners from Pul-e-Chargi prison,” I write, using the spelling for the government prison that Tahir gives me. “They have reduced the money from $25 million to $15 million.”
The figures deeply depress me. They refuse to reduce them further.
Badruddin will not allow Tahir and Asad to write letters to their families. In mine, I insist that their release must be part of any agreement. “Any deal must be for all three of us,” I write. “Again, any must be for all three of us.”
“Please tell the International Red Cross to tell Asad and Tahir’s family they are alive + well,” I write, using a “+” to save space. “Tell Asad + Tahir’s family to please send messages to them through the International Red Cross. They love their families very much.”
I urge my family to negotiate through the Red Cross. I want to somehow shift Badruddin’s and Abu Tayyeb’s attention away from the
Times
’ Kabul bureau, which I worry is still the focus of their paranoia. I am also desperate to find a middleman who they believe will not steal any ransom.
“The Taliban do not trust and are very angry + suspicious of the office,” I write, referring to the bureau. “You should negotiate through the Red Cross only. All negotiations and transactions of any kind should be through the Red Cross. The Taliban trust the Red Cross.”